Obama considers new steps against Syria ‘to pressure’ Assad

US President Barack Obama (R) listens while King Abdullah II of Jordan makes a statement for the press before a meeting at The Annenberg Retreat at Sunnylands February 14, 2014 in Rancho Mirage, California. (AFP Photo / Brendan Smialowski)

US President Barack Obama said he is mulling steps to put pressure on Syrian President Bashar Assad to kickstart the stalled Geneva peace conference. But Russia’s FM Sergey Lavrov says every attempt is being made to derail the peace process.

Obama’s comments were delivered while meeting with Jordan’s King
Abdullah in California on Friday to discuss a range of issues,
including the current Syrian stalemate.

The US president said he does not expect the conflict to be
resolved in the immediate future, though “immediate
steps” will be taken to “help the humanitarian
assistance there.”

“There will be some intermediate steps that we can take
applying more pressure to the Assad regime and we are going to be
continuing to work with all the parties concerned to try to move
forward on a diplomatic solution,” Reuters cited Obama as
saying.

Obama did not specify what steps he would consider, but US
Secretary of State John Kerry told reporters on Friday that Obama
had asked “all of us to think about various options that may
or may not exist."

Having pledged $1 billion in loans to help stabilize Jordan’s
economy, the US believes that the country, which already
currently has more than 600,000 Syrian war refugees, has a part
to play in resolving the Syrian conflict.

“We have been ramping up our support to the moderate
opposition and Jordan has its own strong role to play in
relationship to the moderate opposition,” a senior Obama
administration official told the agency following two hours of
talks at the Sunnylands retreat.

Frustrated by what he views as Assad’s intransigence regarding a
transition of power in the country, Obama has made it a clear a
more assertive policy could be in the works.

Senior administration officials who briefed reporters about
Obama’s talks with King Abdullah reiterated previous claims that
all options remain on the table, short of putting boots on the
ground.

One option is arming the Syrian rebels, something that
Washington’s Gulf allies have been actively doing, though one
official said such a move would only be enacted to help push the
process toward a political solution.

According to one report last month, the US Congress has
already authorized sending small arms, an assorted variety of
rockets, and financial backing to moderate rebel forces.

American and European security officials told Reuters that the US
will provide anti-tank rockets, but nothing as deadly as
shoulder-launched surface-to-air missiles (known as MANPADs),
which can be used to bring down military or civilian aircraft.

The US has long opposed arming rebels with anti-aircraft
missiles, fearing they could fall into the hands of extremists
who would then use them against the West or commercial airlines.
A senior Obama administration official told the Wall Street
Journal on Friday that the US objection remains the same.
"There hasn't been a change internally on our view," the
official said.

Meanwhile, Saudi Arabia on Friday decided to start providing the
opposition with Chinese Manpads and antitank guided missiles from
Russia, WSJ reports, citing Western and Arab diplomats and
opposition figures.

Although significant military hardware remains off the table for
now, the US for its part has increased its financial support to
the opposition, handing over millions of dollars to help pay
rebel fighters, said rebel commanders who received some of the
money. Washington would not comment on the payments.

‘Thwarting peace in Syria’

On Friday, FM Lavrov said it was his impression that
“systematic attempts” were being made to find any excuse
to derail a political settlement in Syria.

“First, a political settlement was almost derailed over
speculation regarding chemical weapons. Now that that problem is
solved, I hope that everything will be done, just as the Syrian
leadership has pledged,” Lavrov told a press conference
following talks with his German counterpart, Frank-Walter
Steinmeier.

‘When the chemical [weapons] issue is not being speculated
over, then attempts are made to politicize the issue of the
humanitarian crisis,” he said.

Lavrov said that when Russia and the US took the initiative to
push ahead with the Geneva 2 peace conference, it was perfectly
clear that there should be complete implementation of the June
2012 Geneva Communique, which, among other points, calls for a
transitional governing body that could include members of the
current government and the opposition.

But in pushing the Syrian opposition to participate in the Geneva
2 conference, there is now the impression that Western powers
only did so for the sake of initiating regime change, he said.

“Certainly, we grow alarmed whenever the presidents of the
United States and France once again say at a joint press
conferences that the affair may go beyond negotiations,"
Lavrov said.